Tuesday night there was a good-sized crowd at the Old Guilford County Court House to watch the primary election returns come in, including seven of nine city councilmembers.
Gathering at the courthouse for election returns is an old tradition and Guilford County is reportedly one of the few counties in the state where it is still alive.
Not so very long ago, you had to be at the courthouse to get the latest returns, but today you can get real time election results on your phone wherever you happen to be.
However, it’s a tradition I hope we keep alive in Guilford County because it is a great way to end a campaign season, with winning and losing factions in the same room. And although we live in a digital world, a handshake and congratulations is much more personal than a phone call or text.
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In my years in the newspaper business, I have been called a lot of names, many of which cannot be printed in a family newspaper. But I’ll have to say that Sunday was the first time I’ve been called a “noted liberal, hippie, beatnik,” and I kind of like it.
Margaret Moffett of the News & Record gave me that label in the Inside Scoop column on Sunday when she wrote about attacks on me by the Chairman of the Guilford County Republican Party Troy Lawson because I endorsed Mayor Nancy Vaughan for mayor over Republican John Brown.
At the Rhino Times, we like to endorse Republicans, but we endorse the person we believe is the best candidate in the race regardless of political affiliation.
Over the course of a mayoral campaign lasting over a year, Brown has had a difficult time getting things right.
The most glaring mistake of late was his statement that the City of Greensboro had purchased the News & Record building for $8.9 million. This is not a political opinion but an easily verifiable fact, and the fact is that it isn’t true.
Because I pointed out errors like this and several others as a reason to support Vaughan over Brown, Lawson has labeled me as untrustworthy and liberal.
Moffett did a great job writing about the squabble.
Brown, by the way, finished third out of three in the mayor’s race and won’t be moving on to the general election in November.
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The Greensboro City Council is going to name part of Westover Terrace for Josephine Boyd (Bradley) who was the first black student to attend what was then Greensboro High School and is now Grimsley.
Boyd chose to transfer from Dudley High School to Grimsley. She wouldn’t be allowed to do that today because the current school board believes that it knows better than parents and students what school each and every student should attend.
Back where Boyd singlehandedly integrated Grimsley, she and her parents got to make the choice on which school she would attend.
Maybe the Guilford County Board of Education should give that some thought.
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When I pulled my News & Record out of the plastic bag last Sunday morning, I had a surprise: The New York Times was stuffed in the bag also.
For about 20 years I regularly read the Sunday New York Times and quit when the Old Gray Lady decided that reporters could write anything they wanted about President Donald Trump, whether it was based on fact or not.
But I have to admit, I do miss it. It may be a far left-wing liberal rag, but it is so well written. The writing is the reason I stuck with it long after the paper had moved way over in left field. The writing is still great and if they would hire a few conservative – not even conservative, how about moderate – editors, it could make a huge difference.
What the place is in desperate need of is some diversity of opinion in the news division. Or else they should come clean and admit that the Gray Old Lady is a radical leftist and is not ashamed of it. But claiming to report the news when spreading liberal propaganda is too much.
